After leaving the university Eliot betook himself to one of the inns of court to master much of the law as was then considered a necessary part of the education of a gentleman. He afterwards travelled on the continent, where he met George Villiers, then an unknown youth, and took great pleasure in his society. On his return to England in the winter of 1611, he married Rhadagund, daughter of Richard Gedie of Trebursye, Cornwall. In 1614 Eliot sat in the Addled parliament for St. Germans. In 1618 he was knighted, and in 1619, by the favour of the companion of his continental travels, who had now become Marquis of Buckingham and lord high admiral, he was appointed vice-admiral of Devon. He did not sit in the parliament of 1621. In 1623, during the absence of his patron in Spain, he first came into collision with the court. He arrested a pirate named Nutt. Nutt, however, had a protector in Sir George Calvert, the secretary of state, and Eliot was committed to the Marshalsea on some trumped-up charges connected with the arrest. He was only liberated on 23 Dec, more than two months after the return of Buckingham, who had now become a duke.
In the parliament of 1624 Eliot sat for the Cornish borough of Newport. His maiden speech on 27 Feb. at once revealed a power of oratory unlike anything which had been heard before in the House of Commons. It also revealed an independence of character which was less unusual. Eliot sympathised deeply with Buckingham's warlike policy directed against Spain, but he had an idealist's reverence for the House of Commons as the depository of the wisdom of the nation. From first to last he was vehement in sustaining its privileges, sometimes even at the expense of what might at the time seem graver interests. He now asked that the question of freedom of speech which had been raised in the last days of the parliament of 1621 might be finally settled. The house was intent on other matters, and Eliot's proposal was shelved in a committee.
Eliot, as might have been expected, gave his voice for a breach with Spain. On 24 April he called for thanks to the king and prince on their declaration that there should be no conditions for the catholics in the French marriage treaty. Before the prorogation he advocated the impeachment of Middlesex. He was still an adherent of Buckingham, and was marked out for a place in his cortège if he had, as was intended, gone to France, shortly after the accession of Charles I, to fetch the future queen, the Princess Henrietta Maria. On 1 April 1625 he wrote to the duke to assure him that he hoped to become 'wholly devoted to the contemplation of his excellence.' In the parliament of 1625, the first parliament of the new reign, Eliot again represented Newport. On 23 June he spoke for the purity and unity of religion, arguing for the enforcement of the laws against the catholics. It was probably the tolerance shown by Charles to the catholics, in defiance of his promise made to the last parliament, which roused Eliot's suspicions of his government. He took a strong part against Wentworth in the case of a disputed election. On 8 July, when it was known that Buckingham had advised Charles to ask for a grant of money for the war in addition to the two subsidies which had been already voted, Eliot was chosen to remonstrate with the duke, evidently as a person who was still on good terms with him. The arguments which he used to induce Buckingham to abandon the demand which had been made for further subsidies avoided the main point at issue, the necessity or otherwise of a large grant for the service of the war, and may, therefore, give rise to a suspicion that though Eliot already shared the general opinion as to Buckingham's incompetency as a war minister, he did not like to tell him this to his face. On 6 Aug., after the adjournment to Oxford, he appeared for the last time as a mediator, declaring his distrust in a war policy which extended to Denmark, Savoy, Germany, and France, but throwing the blame of the late miscarriages, not on Buckingham, but on the navy commissioners. An attempt which was subsequently made to induce Buckingham to make concessions broke down on the duke's persistence, with Charles's support, in refusing to admit to the direction of affairs counsellors who might have the confidence of the House of Commons. It was this refusal which marks Eliot's final breach with him. Yet, though in the warm debates which followed he had taken up some notes of Sir R. Cotton, and had worked them up into a speech of bitter invective against the duke, he allowed his words to remain unspoken, and contented himself with watching events during the remainder of the session (see Gardiner, Hist. of England, 1603-42, v.425).
In the winter which followed, Eliot was witness of the miserable condition of the men who had returned from the Cadiz voyage, and who, ill-clothed and half-starved, crowded the streets of Plymouth. Accordingly, when he was elected to the new parliament which met in 1626, this time as member for St. Germans, he came to it entirely estranged from the man whom he had for many years regarded with affection. Eliot was not one whose feelings were ever at a moderate heat. He had the
